From Turkish greengrocer to drag queen: reassessing patriarchy in recent TurkishGerman coming-of-age films

This article explores the critical reassessment of one particularly prevalent ethnic stereotype in TurkishGerman cinema: the stereotype of the oppressive Turkish partriarch. Comparing Yasemin (1988), a much-cited, early coming-of-age film made by German film-maker Hark Bohm, with three recent features made by young TurkishGerman film-makers Slbiye Gnar's Karamuk (2002), Ayse Polat's Tour Abroad and Zli Aladag's controversial Rage (2006) it examines fatherdaughter and fatherson relationships and traces how these films reaffirm or invert the clichd image of the domineering Turkish father who is out of touch with German majority culture. Drawing on Kobena Mercer's concept of the dialogic imagination, the article investigates whether these cinematic representations of the vilified or idealized father promote social change through a multiplication of critical dialogues or whether they simply reiterate dominant discourses of domination (Mercer 2003).